print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.12609
- Title
- Object: John Bull in a fever.
- Description
-
Plate from the Satirist, v. 1. Explanatory text, pp. 1-4. John Bull, a sturdy yokel seated in the centre of the design, is beset by quacks who threaten him with dangerous remedies. He has been made to believe that some trifling and juvenile depredations on his fruit by one of his farm-boys was wholesale and wanton spoliation aimed at the complete destruction of the trees themselves. John then declared his constitution ruined, and the quacks became active. Lord Folkestone (left) bleeds him, applying a lancet to the right arm, while an elderly fanatic (? Cartwright) tries to drag the rival quack away; the latter holds a small guillotine to which is attached a bag inscribed Patent Gills. Behind them stands Wilberforce holding a bowl of Milk. Whitbread holds up a small cask of Quassia [see No. 10574]; its contents gush from the bung-hole on to the back of John's neck. Burdett diagnoses brain fever; he lathers the patient's head with a brush and is about to apply a razor. Grenville holds John's limp left hand and drags off his shirt, watched by the spectacled and smiling Buckingham; both are said to approve the remedy of Temple, who stands between them with a bottle of Stow Leeches for the illness, which he defines as 'the yellow jaundice'. Behind him is Clifford, wild-looking in a barrister's wig, holding up a bottle of Opium. On the extreme right are Wardle, holding a bowl of Leek Broth, and flourishing a pot of Itch ointment, the itch, he says, being 'very common in the Welch mountains'. His neighbour, also from the mountains, must be Charles Wynn, though not convincingly like the Wynn of No. 11297 by the same artist; his remedy is Tartar Emetic. Between Burdett and Buckingham stands Grey, who diagnoses lethargy and holds out a Plaister (indicating his more moderate views on Reform). On the extreme left are 'two villainous looking fellows . . . consulting apart'; one is Cobbett with a glister-pipe, formed of a porcupine's quill (see No. 11049), the bladder containing corrosive sublimate. The other, 'a wretch whose ears had been spared by the pillory', displays a tap for dropsy, but conceals a dagger. A pistol projects from under his coat. He resembles Finnerty (or Hogan) in No. 11211. (On the discovery of the secret intentions of these two John leaps up in a rage and falls upon the quacks.)
1 July 1809
Etching and aquatint
- Production date
- 1809
- Dimensions
-
Height: 192 millimetres
-
Width: 360 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
A satire on Parliamentary Reform, see No. 11328, &c. The Grenvilles, regarded as arch-sinecurists, cf. No. 10543, are merely intent on enriching themselves. The others prepare remedies which range from the mild prescription of Wilberforce to the dangerous ones of Cartwright, represented as a fanatic rather than a villain, and the murderous designs of Cobbett and Finnerty. See No. 11351, a sequel.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.12609